Final pronoun change DRAFT
DRAFT FOR 16 JANUARY 2017, INTERNAL MANAGEMENT THREAD It’s been six months after that “new way of manual of style changes” vote ended, which means the edit-free period of pronoun usage is over for now. I really regretted making that thread because I could’ve addressed this problem the other way around, but nevermind. I was too late to cancel that thread so yeah I shouldn’t cry over spilt milk. Also I’m trying to be a good admin by not making any pronoun change threads at the period, because someone would probably blame me for being inconsistent and not adhere to the rules and then just flat out oppose :P After taking some careful considerations I realized I HAVE to make this thread. The reason? A flaw in this rule, really, and some major flaws in the gender neutrality rule. I’m gonna point out the biggest flaw in this “6 months edit-free period” rule. That is, the period is only temporary, meaning that people can STILL make another pronoun change threads after that time has passed. And this thing will keep continue if we don’t change it, so we must put the final nail in the coffin by indefinitely sticking to a standard. If this thread wins, this will be the last pronoun change thread, because if this wins, it means that we’ll stick to this indefinitely, so NO ONE should change the pronoun usage ever again (thus replacing the edit-free period rule with an indefinite one). Now, if you’re asking why we need to make another one like this while you could just change the rule to “indefinite” without tampering with the pronoun usage, well it’s because I ALSO pointed out several major flaws in using gender neutrality (aka “it”) on humanlike zombies (i.e. dead humans, not zombie animals or robots). First reason, you can easily identify whether or not they’re male or female. Unlike plants, which usually doesn’t have any easily identifiable parts, zombies have. Zombies have some visual cues that humans have in real life, unlike plants. Just look at their, for example, hair or clothing, and you’ll be able to easily tell if they’re male or female. Second reason, “it” sounds inappropriate if you call someone with an obvious male or female name as “it”. Like this. “Dr. Chester is a Scientist variant in Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare. It 'was first revealed on…” Or this. “Rachel Platten is a zombie in Humans, Plants, and Zombies. '''It '''is one of the non-playable female characters in…” Even worse, this. "Captain Party'man is a Legendary Captain Deadbeard variant in Plants vs. Zombies: GW2. It '''was first revealed on..." (he's obviously a male, because "man", but calling him as "it" makes the whole thing ridiculous) Really? Now, this is where your logic is used. Do you wanna call them “it”, which is inappropriate, or “he/she”, which is way more appropriate? Obviously you wanna use the latter option, right? Which means that gender-neutrality will be ignored. The only solution to this is that we use “he/she” for them, and to prevent inconsistencies, use “he/she” for every single humanlike zombies. Third, Dr. Zomboss is the only zombie excluded from this gender neutrality rule, while others like Dr. Chester (which has an obvious male name) isn’t. This causes some discrepancies by making the rest of the zombies who have obvious gender-related names being called as "it". Fourth, fundamentally, zombies are dead '''humans, so it's really better to use "he/she" to refer them. Also, when you refer to a dead person in real life, you still use "he/she" instead of "it", right? Fifth, according to some people I messaged on chat, they actually prefer using "he/she" instead of "it" to refer zombies. If we stick to using gender neutrality for zombies, this means that we're forcing them to not do the thing they always wanted to do. Due to the flaws mentioned here, it's obvious that using "he/she" to refer them is proper in terms of grammar, and this is completely a fine thing to do, unlike, say, using informal contractions on articles, which is obviously bad because they weren't meant to be used in formal writing, but only for everyday speech and messaging. I myself prefer using "he/she" to refer to them. Some proof (in case you don't believe me): some more, but hey, this is still a draft, so yeah. pronounoproof1.png pronounnnn2.png Sixth, similarly, you can use "he/she" on animals when the gender cue is obvious. However, zombie animals will still use gender neutrality as we don't know how to tell them. The gender cue on animals usually is hard to tell; only zoologists and the like would know how to identify it. From a Stack Exchange answer regarding to this subject: "Animals that are obviously male or female ... can safely be referred to as he or she..." This is related to the first reason (zombies' genders are easily determinable) because it's obvious when a zombie is male or female; you can tell by his/her appearance. Last but not least, some wikis prefer to use "he/she" instead of "it" for humanoid things (orcs, undeads, humanlike monsters, etc.) when their genders are identifiable. Examples are: WoWWiki: Drek'Thar (male orc), Thrall (male orc), Sylvanas Windrunner (female undead) (or just browse to the full list of orcs in a single category and undead too for even more proof. Surprisingly, WoWWiki is a WAY bigger community than us, yet they prefer using "he/she" to refer them! Just look at their amount of pages (104K+ at the time of writing). Resident Evil Wiki: Salazar (male Ganado/infected zombie-like human), Oven Man (male Ganado/infected zombie-like human) Now, this is only for zombies. Plants should stick with gender neutrality as there are some discrepancies PopCap made like calling the Dandelion as “he” in the almanac but “she” in the ads. Also, some of the peashooters are female and the Rose Swordsman is a male, and there’s no obvious visual cue to tell whether they’re male or female unlike zombies, so the usage for plants is a bit in a gray area. If you're telling me this is too late because a lot of pages have turned back into using "it", well, nothing's too late. I have to adhere to the rules just like the others, or people will no longer trust me. This pronoun change thread can actually be posted anytime after the edit-free period ended, but sooner is better. Also, see below. I’m the most responsible person for this, as I did some pronoun fixes on a lot of zombies pages back then, when the pronoun usage for them was inconsistent (still using “it” to refer zombies, despite the new “he/she” rule). If this wins,' I’ll try to fix every single pages that use “it” to refer zombies just like what I did back then, for your pleasure and consistency '''of course, so sit back and relax while I try to fix those :P (or you can just help me fix them to make things easier :P) Once again, this is to put the final nail in the coffin, so if this wins, NO OTHER pronoun changes will be accepted. They'll be immediately closed and the thread starter will be given a notification (not warning, except for in cases when the ), which means that the forum will be a bit more peaceful, there will be one less problem on this wiki, and the wiki will be more consistent. However, if this loses, the flawed 6 months pronoun edit free period will stay, and inconsistencies are waiting, so '''choose wisely'. OK so now… VOTE! or